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"The public sector stopped making public space a long time ago," Los Angeles architect Jon Jerde told Wired magazine rather matter-of-factly in 1999. Jerde, who died last month at age 75, was best known for projects that were both resigned to and propelled by that idea. Among the most influential is CityWalk at Universal Studios, a lively, privatized, open-air pedestrian corridor, styled in neon-lit postmodernism, that leads from several large parking garages past restaurants, cafes, trinket shops and a multiplex to the amusement park's front gates. It was completed in 1993 as Los Angeles continued to reel from the Rodney King unrest and as the effort to build Frank...

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"The public sector stopped making public space a long time ago," Los Angeles architect Jon Jerde told Wired magazine rather matter-of-factly in 1999. Jerde, who died last month at age 75, was best known for projects that were both resigned to...

From the LAPD beating of Rodney King 24 years ago to last year’s death of Eric Garner after a scuffle with New York police officers, bystanders who recorded the incidents on video have allowed the public to see at least some of what happened.
One...

Defendants in high-profile criminal cases often look to move their trials to another county or state as a way of improving the odds of finding jurors who are not already inclined to believing they are guilty.
The most recent case in point: Dzhokhar...

He was the surly pizza man who interrupted a class at Ridgemont High to deliver a double-cheese-and-sausage to the cool-guy student played by Sean Penn.
He was the Olsen twins' prissy, Spanish-accented nanny, Manuelo, on "So Little Time." He...

Taylor Negron, a comedian and actor who was a fixture in Los Angeles comedy clubs as well as a playwright who penned “Gangster Planet” after the 1992 Rodney King verdict riots, died Saturday. He was 57.
Negron’s death from cancer was announced by his...

A wooden cross on a narrow, tree-lined road marks the spot where Samantha Ramsey died a violent death.
Passersby might think the marker, etched with the 19-year-old's name and a yellow smiley face, is a memorial to a car crash victim. They would be...

Los Angeles will purchase 7,000 cameras for police officers to wear while on patrol, making the city a laboratory in the use of devices that bring the promise of more transparent policing but also concerns about civilian privacy.Los Angeles would be the...

There's a line in New York rapper ASAP Ferg's syrupy new track "Talk It," a musical response to the death of Michael Brown and the subsequent riots in Ferguson, Mo., that underscored the calcified nature of relations between black communities...

Eric Garner, a 43-year-old unarmed black man, died in an altercation in July with police, in which Officer Daniel Pantaleo had his arm around Garner's neck in what appeared to be a chokehold as other officers pressed Garner's body to the ground. A...

A New York grand jury Wednesday opted not to indict a white policeman in the killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man whose last words — “I can’t breathe” — became a rallying cry for protesters who blamed his death on racial profiling and police...

Those hoping the federal government will criminally prosecute Ferguson, Mo., police Officer Darren Wilson in the killing of an unarmed black man are likely to be disappointed, but chances are strong that the Justice Department will impose significant...

To the editor: Frankly, I am tired of seeing black women crying over the loss of their sons. It is gut-wrenching to see signs carried by small black children that read, "Black lives matter." ("As Ferguson anger simmers, protests in other...

In his long public life in Los Angeles, including eight years as mayor, few ever accused Richard J. Riordan of being the Great Communicator.
Sincere. Awkward. Generous. Tone deaf. Unbending. Passionate. All of those, yes. But capable of moving people...

Joseph McNamara, the former San Jose police chief whose outspoken criticism of the war on drugs, the gun lobby and Daryl Gates gave him a national profile as a progressive leader in law enforcement, died Friday at his home in Carmel. He was 79.
The cause...

A settlement requiring a California Highway Patrol officer to step down after he was videotaped punching a woman along the 10 Freeway is highly unusual and could lead to similar demands in future police misconduct lawsuits, lawyers said Thursday.
An...

Robert L. Brosio, a retired federal prosecutor who supervised high-profile cases that included those against bank swindler Charles Keating Jr. and Los Angeles police officers who were involved in the beating of Rodney King, has died. He was 77.
Brosio,...

Celebrities once landed in hot water when they ventured out into the world, escaping their families or handlers. Hugh Grant was arrested on a side street near Sunset Boulevard, Mel Gibson after a night of drinking in Malibu.
Institutions often...

Los Angeles County supervisors received a proposed blueprint Monday for a civilian oversight commission that would monitor the Sheriff's Department and its troubled jail system.
Offered by an activist group known as the Coalition to End Sheriff...

It's becoming a Los Angeles tradition: Whenever a law enforcement agency gets into trouble, a special commission is convened and a recommendation is made to hire an inspector general. Elected officials follow the recommendation and the inspector general...